SERMON CLXXV.

OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, AS DISCOVERED BY NATURE AND BY REVELATION.

But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.—2 Tim. i. 10.

THE fifth and last argument is, That this supposition of the soul’s immortality, gives the fairest account and easiest solution of the phenomena of human nature, of those several actions and operations which we are conscious to ourselves of, and which, without great violence to our reason, cannot be resolved into a bodily principle, and ascribed to mere matter; such are perception, memory, liberty, and the several acts of understanding and reason. These operations we find in ourselves, and we cannot imagine how they should be performed by mere mat ter; therefore we ought, in all reason, to resolve them into some principle of another nature from matter, that is, into something that is immaterial, and consequently immortal, that is incapable in its own nature of corruption and dissolution.

And that the force of this argument may the better appear, I shall speak something of these distinctly, and shew that none of these operations can be performed from mere matter. I begin with the

1. First and lowest, which is sensitive perception, which is nothing else but a consciousness to ourselves of our own sensations, an apprehension of the 564impressions which are made upon us; and this faculty is that which constitutes the difference between sensitive and insensitive creatures. A stone may have several impressions made upon it, as well as the living creature endowed with sense; but with this difference, that whatever impressions are made upon a stone, by knocking, cutting, or any other kind of motion or action, the stone is stupid, and is not in the least conscious of any of those impressions, does not perceive what is done to it; whereas those creatures which are endowed with sense, do plainly perceive their own and other motions, they are affected with the impressions made upon them.

Now we can give no account of this operation from mere matter. It is plain, that matter is not in its own nature sensible; for we find the greatest part of the world to consist of insensible parts, and such as have no perception. Now if matter be granted in itself to be insensible, it is utterly unimaginable, how any motion or configuration of the parts of it, should raise that which hath no sense to a faculty of perception. Epicurus fancied those particles of matter, of which souls were framed, to be the finest and smallest; and for their smoother and easier motion, that they were all of a round figure. But supposing matter not to be naturally and of itself sensible, who can conceive what that is which should awaken the drowsy parts of it to a lively sense of the impressions made upon it? it is every whit as easy to imagine how an instrument might be framed and tuned so artificially, as to hear its own sounds, and to be marvellously delighted with them; or that a glass might be polished to that fineness, as to see all those objects which are reflected upon it.

But there is one difficulty in this: for it may be said, if sensitive perception be an argument of the soul’s immateriality, and consequently immortality, then the souls of beasts will be immortal as well as the souls of men. For answer to this, I shall say these things:

(1.) That the most general and common philosophy of the world hath always acknowledged some thing in beasts besides their bodies, and that the faculty of sense and perception which is in them, is founded in a principle of a higher nature than mat ter. And as this was always the common philosophy of the world, so we find it to be a supposition of Scripture, which frequently attributes souls to beasts as well as to men, though of a much inferior nature. And therefore those particular philosophers, who have denied any immaterial principle, or a soul to beasts, have also denied them to have sense, any more than a clock, or watch, or any other engine; and have imagined them to be nothing else but a finer and more complicated kind of engines, which, by reason of the curiosity and tenderness of their frame, are more easily susceptible of all kind of motions and impressions from without, which impressions are the cause of all those actions that resemble those sensations which we men find in ourselves: which is to say, that birds, and beasts, and fishes, are nothing else but a more curious sort of puppets, which, by certain secret and hidden weights and springs, do move up and down, and counterfeit the actions of life and sense. This, I confess, seems to me to be an odd kind of philosophy; and it hath this vehement prejudice against it—that if this were true, every man would have great cause to question the reality of his own perceptions; for to all appearance 566the sensations of beasts are as real as ours, and in many things their senses much more exquisite than ours; and if nothing can be a sufficient argument to a man, that he is really endowed with sense, besides his own consciousness of it, then every man hath reason to doubt whether all men in the world be sides himself be not mere engines; for no man hath any other evidence, that another man is really endowed with sense, than he hath that brute creatures are so; for they appear to us to see, and hear, and feel, and smell, and taste things, as truly and as exactly as any man in the world does.

(2.) Supposing beasts to have an immaterial principle distinct from their body, it will not from hence follow, that they are immortal, in the sense that we attribute immortality to men. For immortality, when we ascribe it to men, signifies two things.

1. That the soul remains after the body, and is not corrupted and dissolved together with it.

2. That it lives in this separate state, and is sensible of happiness or misery.

1. Immortality imports, that the soul remains after the body, and is not corrupted or dissolved together with it. And there is no inconvenience in attributing this sort of immortality to the brute creatures. And here it is not necessary for us, who know so little of the ways and works of God, and of the secrets of nature, to be able to give a particular account what becomes of the souls of brute creatures after death: whether they return into the soul and spirit of the world, if there be any such thing, as some fancy; or whether they pass into the bodies of other animals which succeed in their rooms: I say, this is not necessary to be particularly determined; it is sufficient to 567lay down this in general as highly probable, that they are such a sort of spirits, which, as to their operation and life, do necessarily depend upon mat ter, and require union with it; which union being dissolved, they lapse into an insensible condition, and a state of inactivity. For being endowed only with a sensitive principle, the operations of which do plainly depend upon an organical disposition of the body, when the body is dissolved all their activity ceaseth; and when this visible frame of the world shall be dissolved, and this scene of sensible things shall pass away, then it is not improbable that they shall be discharged out of being, and return to their first nothing: for though in their own nature they would continue longer, yet, having served the end of their being, and done their work, it is not unsuitable to the same wisdom that made them, and commanded them into being, to let them sink into their first state.

2. Immortality, as applied to the spirits of men, imports, that their souls are not only capable of continuing, but living in this separate state, so as to be sensible of happiness and misery. For the soul of man being of a higher nature, and not only endowed with a faculty of sense, but likewise other faculties which have no necessary dependance upon, or connexion with, matter; having a sense of God, and of Divine and spiritual things, and being capable of happiness in the enjoyment of God, or of misery in a separation from him; it is but reason able to imagine, that the souls of men shall be admitted to the exercise of these faculties, and the enjoyment of that life which they are capable of in a separate state. And this is that which constitutes that vast and wide difference between the souls of 568men and beasts: and this degree of immortality is as much above the other, as reason and religion are above sense.

3. Another faculty in us, which argues an immaterial, and consequently an immortal principle in man, is memory; and this likewise is common in some degree to several of the brute creatures, and it seems to be nothing else but a kind of continued sensation of things. And of this we can give no account from mere matter. For if that which we call the soul, were nothing else but, as Epicurus imagined, a little wild-fire, a company of small round particles of matter in perpetual motion, it being a fluid thing, it would be liable to a continual dissipation of its parts, and the new parts that come, would be altogether strangers to the impressions made upon the old: so that, supposing the soul liable but to those changes which the grosser parts of our bodies, our flesh and blood, continually are liable to, by the evaporation and spending of the old, and an accession of new matter; (and if we suppose the soul to be fluid matter, that is, consisting of particles, which are by no kind of connexion linked to one another, it will in all probability be more easily dissipable than the grosser parts of the body; and) if so, how is it imaginable that these new and foreign particles should retain any sense of the impressions made upon those which are gone many years ago?

4. Another faculty which I shall instance in, is the will of man, which is endowed with liberty and freedom, and gives a man dominion over his own actions. Matter moves by necessary and certain laws, and cannot move if it be at rest, unless it be moved by another; and cannot rest, that is, cannot 569but move, if it be impelled by another. Whence then are voluntary motions? Whence is the αὐτεξσύσιον, the arbitrary principle which we find in ourselves, the freedom of action to do or not to do this or that, which we are intimately conscious to ourselves of? Of all the operations of our minds, it is the hardest to give an account of liberty from mere matter. This Epicurus was sensible of, and in finitely puzzled with it, as we may see by the question which Lucretius puts: Unde est hæc, inquam, fatis avulsa voluntas? “How comes the soul of man to have this peculiar privilege of freedom and liberty, above all other sorts of matter that are in the world? Whence is it, that when all things else move by a fatal necessity, the soul of man should be exempted from that slavery?” He does indeed attempt to give an account of it from a motion of declination which is proper and peculiar to the particles of the soul: but that is a more unintelligible riddle than liberty itself. The

5. Fifth, and last operation I shall instance in, is that of reason and understanding. Not to mention the activity and nimbleness of our thoughts, in the abstracted notions of our minds, the multitude of distinct ideas and notions which dwell together in our souls, none of which are accountable from mat ter; I shall only instance in two particulars.

(1.) Those acts of reason and judgment whereby we overrule the reports of our senses, and correct the errors and deceptions of them.

(2.) The contemplation of spiritual and Divine things.

(1.) Those acts of reason and judgment whereby we overrule the reports and determinations of sense. Our sense tells us, that things at a distance 570are less, than our reason tells us they are really in themselves; as, that the body of the sun is but about a foot diameter: but our reason informs us otherwise. Now what is the principle that controls our senses, and corrects the deception of them? If the soul of man be mere matter, it can only judge of things according to the impressions which are made upon our senses: but we do judge otherwise, and see reason to do so many times. Therefore it must be some higher principle, which judges of things not by the material impressions which they make upon our senses, but by other measures. And therefore, to avoid this inconvenience, Epicurus was glad, to fly the absurdity, to affirm, that all things really are what they appear to us, and that in truth the sun is no bigger than it seems to be.

(2.) The contemplation of things spiritual and Divine, is an argument that the soul is of a higher original than any thing that is material. To contemplate the nature of God, and the Divine excellences and perfections; the meditation of a future state, and of the happiness of another world; those breathings which good men feel in their souls after God, and the enjoyment of him—argue the spiritual nature of the soul. Hoc habet argumentum divinitatis suæ (saith Seneca) quod eam divina delectant, nec ut alienis interest sed suis: “The soul of man hath this argument of its Divine original—that it is so strangely delighted, so infinitely pleased and satisfied with the contemplation of Divine things, and is taken up with these thoughts, as if they were its proper business and concernment.” Those strong inclinations and desires after immortality, and the pleasure which good men find in the forethoughts of the happiness which they hope to enter into, when 571their souls shall quit these mansions; the restless aspirings of our souls towards God, and those blessed mansions where he dwells, and where the spirits of good men converse with him and one another; these signify our souls to be of a nobler extraction than the earth, that they are descended from above, and that heaven is their country; their thoughts are so much upon it, and they are so desirous to return to it.

I shall conclude this argument, from the noble and excellent operations of our souls, of which we are conscious to ourselves, with a passage of Tully to this purpose:—Animarum nulla in terris origo inveniri potest: nihil enim est in animis mixtum atque concretum, aut quod ex terra natum atque fictum esse videatur. “The souls of men have not their original from the earth, it is in vain to seek for it there: for there is nothing in the mind of man of a material mixture and composition, which we can imagine to be born or formed out of the earth. For (says he) among material and earthly things there is nothing,” Quod vim memoriæ, mentis, cogitationis habeat, quod et præterita teneat, et futura provideat, et complecti possit præsentia: “There is no earthly thing which hath the power of memory, of understanding, of thought, which retains things past, foresees and provides for things future, comprehends and considers things present.” Singularis est igitur quædam natura atque vis animi, sejuncta ab his usitatis notisque naturis; “So that the nature and power of the soul are of a peculiar and singular kind, different from all those natures which we are acquainted with in this world.” He concludes, Itaque quicquid est quod sentit, quod sapit, quod vult, quod viget, cæleste et divinum est, ob eamque rem æternum sit necesse est; 572“Therefore, whatever that is which is endowed with a power of perception, with wisdom, with liberty, with so much vigour and activity as the soul of man, is of heavenly and Divine original, and for that reason is necessarily immortal, and to continue for ever.”

Thus I have represented to you, as briefly and plainly as I could, those which I account the chief and strongest arguments of this great principle of religion—the soul’s immortality. Some of them are plain and obvious to every capacity; the rest, though they be above common capacities, yet were not to be neglected, because they may be useful to some, though not to all; and as those who are more wise and knowing should have patience, whilst the most common and plainest things are spoken for the instruction of ordinary capacities, so those of lower capacities should be content that many things should be spoken which may be useful to others, though they be above their reach.

To sum up then what hath been said from reason, for the proof of the soul’s immortality. It is a natural dictate and notion of our minds, universally entertained in all ages and places of the world, excepting some very few persons and sects; it doth not contradict any other principle that nature hath planted in us, but doth very well agree with those other notions which are most natural; it is most suitable to the natural hopes and fears of men; it evidently tends to the happiness and perfection of man, and to the good order and government of the world; lastly, it gives the fairest account of the phenomena of human nature, of those several actions and operations which we are conscious to ourselves of.

Now supposing the soul were immortal, what greater rational evidence than this can we expect for it? How can we without a revelation have more assurance of the things of this nature than these arguments give us, not taken singly, but as they concur together to make up an entire argument, and to give us sufficient evidence of this?

I do not say that these arguments do so necessarily conclude it, that there is an absolute impossibility the thing should be otherwise; but so as to render it sufficiently certain to a prudent and considerate man, and one that is willing to accept of reasonable evidence. For the generality of the papists do pertinaciously maintain this unreasonable principle—that there can be no certainty of any thing without infallibility: yet some of the wiser of them have thought better of it, and are pleased to state the business of certainty otherwise; particularly Melchior Canus, one of the most learned of their writers, determines those things to be sufficiently certain, which no man can without imprudence and obstinacy disbelieve:—Certa apud homines ea sunt, quæ negari sine pervicacia et stultitia non possunt: “Men esteem those things certain, which no man that is not unreasonably obstinate and imprudent can deny.” And I think the arguments I have brought for the soul’s immortality, are such, as no man, that is unprejudiced and hath a prudent regard to his own interest, can resist.

Thus I have done with the first thing I propounded to do for the proof of the soul’s immortality; which was to shew, what evidence of reason there is for it. I shall speak briefly to the

Second thing I propounded, which was to shew how little can be said against it, because this will 574indirectly give a strength and force to the arguments I have brought for it. For it is very considerable in any question or controversy, what strength there is in the arguments on both sides: for, though very plausible arguments may be brought for a thing, yet, if others as plausible and specious may be urged against it, this leaves the thing in æquilibrio, it sets the balance even, and inclines the judgment neither way; nay, if the objections against a thing be considerable, though not so strong as the arguments for it, the considerableness of the objections does so far weaken the contrary arguments: but where the arguments on one hand are strong, and the objections on the contrary very slight, and such as may easily be answered, the weakness of the objections contributes to the strength of the arguments for the other side of the question.

To come then to the business, I know but three objections which have any colour against this principle.

1. That the notion of a spirit, or an immaterial substance, does imply a contradiction.

Answer 1.—This is only boldly said, and not the least colour of proof offered for it by the author that asserts it. This objection had indeed been considerable, if it had been made out as clearly as it is confidently affirmed. In the mean time, I think we may take leave to deny, that the notion of a spirit hath any repugnancy in it, till somebody think fit to prove it.

2. I told you that this question, about the soul’s immortality, supposeth the existence of God to be already proved; and if there be a God, and it be an essential property of the Divine nature, that he is a spirit, then there is such a thing as a spirit and 575immaterial substance; and consequently, the notion of a spirit hath no contradiction in it: for if it had, there could be no such thing.

II. It is said, there is no express texts for the soul’s immortality in the Old Testament.

Answer.—This doth not properly belong to the intrinsical arguments and reason of the thing, but is matter of revelation. And this I shall fully speak to, when I come to shew what evidence the Jews had for the soul’s immortality. In the mean time, this maybe a sufficient answer to this objection—that there is no absolute necessity why it should be expressly revealed in the Old Testament, if it be, as I have shewn, a natural notion of our minds: for the Scripture supposeth us to be men, and to have an antecedent notion of those truths which are implanted in our nature, and therefore chiefly designs to teach us the way to that eternal happiness which we have a natural notion and hope of. The

III. Third objection is from the near and intimate sympathy which is between the soul and the body, which appears in the vigour and strength of our faculties; as understanding and memory do very much depend upon the temper and disposition of the body, and do usually decay and decline with it.

Answer.—The utmost that this objection signifies, is, that there is an intimate union and conjunction between the soul and the body, which is the cause of the sympathy which we find to be between them: but it does by no means prove, that they are one and the same essence. Now, that there is such an intimate union and connexion between the soul and matter in all creatures endowed with life and sense, is acknowledged by all who affirm the immateriality of souls; though the manner of this 576union be altogether unknown to us: and supposing such an union, it is but reasonable to imagine that there should be such a sympathy, that the body would be affected with the delights and disturbances of the mind, and that the soul should also take part in the pleasures and pains of the body, that by this means it may be effectually excited and stirred up to provide for the supply of our bodily wants and necessities; and from this sympathy, it is easy to give account how it comes to pass, that our faculties of understanding, and memory, and imagination, are more or less vigorous, according to the good or bad temper and disposition of our bodies. For, by the same reason that the mind may begrieved and afflicted at the pains and sufferings of the body, it may likewise be disordered and weakened in its operations by the distempers of the body. So that this objection only proves the soul to be united to the body; but not to be the same thing with it.

END OF VOL. VII.

J. F. DOVE, Printer, St. John’s Square.